The Great Table was a large pink

diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

that had been studded in the throne of the Mughal emperor

Shah Jahan Shah Jahan I, (Shahab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram; 5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), also called Shah Jahan the Magnificent, was the Emperor of Hindustan from 1628 until his deposition in 1658. As the fifth Mughal emperor, his reign marked the ...

. It has been described in the book of the French jeweller

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605–1689) was a 17th-century French gem merchant and traveler. Tavernier, a private individual and merchant traveling at his own expense, covered, by his own account, 60,000 leagues in making six voyages to Persia ...

in 1642, who gave it its name ("Diamanta Grande Table"). The diamond was plundered from the Mughal treasury of

Mohammad Shah Mirza Nasir-ud-Din Muḥammad Shah (born Roshan Akhtar; 7 August 1702 – 26 April 1748) was the thirteenth Mughal emperor from 1719 to 1748. He was son of Khujista Akhtar, the fourth son of Bahadur Shah I. After being chosen by the Sayyid ...

Nader Shah Nader Shah Afshar (; 6 August 1698 or 22 October 1688 – 20 June 1747) was the founder of the Afsharid dynasty of Iran and one of the most powerful rulers in Iranian history, ruling as shah of Iran (Persia) from 1736 to 1747, when he was a ...

during his invasion of India in 1739 and disappeared after his assassination in

Khorasan KhorasanDabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 (; , ) is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West and Central Asia that encompasses western and no ...

in 1747. In 1965, a Canadian team from the

Royal Ontario Museum The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) is a museum of art, world culture and natural history in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the largest museums in North America and the largest in Canada. It attracts more than one million visitors every year ...

conducting research on the

Iranian Crown Jewels The Iranian National Jewels (, ''Javāherāt-e Melli-ye Irān''), originally the Iranian Crown Jewels (, ''Javāherāt-e Saltanati-ye Irān''), include elaborate crowns, thirty tiaras, and numerous aigrettes, a dozen bejeweled swords and shield ...

concluded that the larger

Daria-i-Noor The or 'Ocean of Light'), also spelled Darya-ye Noor and Daria-i-Nur, is one of the List of diamonds, largest cut diamonds in the world, weighing an estimated 182 carats (36 g). Its colour, pale pink, is one of the rarest to be found in diamond ...

and the smaller

Noor-ul-Ain The Noor-ul-Ain () is one of the largest pink diamonds in the world, and the centre piece of the tiara of the same name. History The diamond is believed to have been recovered from the mines of Golconda, Hyderabad in India. It was first in poss ...

may well have been part of the Great Table.Great Table Diamond
gem, Britannica.com

References

* A. Malecka, "The Mystery of the Nur al-Ayn Diamond", Gems & Jewellery: The Gemmological Association of Great Britain, volume 23 (7), August/September 2014, pp. 20-22 https://issuu.com/jeweller/docs/jeweller_g_j__sept_2014_/58 * A. Malecka, "Darya-ye Nur: History and Myth of a Crown Jewel of Iran", Iranian Studies vol. 51 (2018), https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00210862.2017.1362952

External links

Great Table
, By Scott Sucher, Museum Diamonds Diamonds originating in India Jewels of the Mughal Empire Pink diamonds Golconda diamonds {{Mughal-stub

See also

References

External links